Leave Now or Be in Iraq For at Least a Decade.

6 Comments

1. 

   clammyc on August 31, 2007 at 5:09 pm

   also in orange

2. 

   michael72 on August 31, 2007 at 8:11 pm

   I totally agree with you and personally want a quicker than hell withdrawal.
   but i think and god only knows why they are thinking this but it appears to me that the political and foreign policy elites have decided to stay in iraq. perhaps in a much diminished capacity within the next year or two, but i don’t see how it can be interpreted otherwise. not only that but the crackpots in the WH are planning to attack iran within a short time frame and that will only double or triple the violence in the whole region. and the neo-cons or the israelis may even use some tactical nukes. they are that far gone from reality.

   and the spineless demoRats, well…..what can you say about such a divided and gutless party of corporate hacks beholden to a militaristic and imperial mentality which has ruled america since the end of WWII. the imperatives of Empire are running the show and the elites can’t seem to get away from the idea that they have to try to dominate and control all events everywhere in the world, particularly in areas where there are incredibly rich oil and natural gas supplies, such as in the persian gulf, caspian sea and in venezuela, etc etc

   your choices are totally accurate. i feel that the rubicon has already been passed, regardless of what any demoRat candidate says now, once they, he or she, get into office, they too will feel the Imperial imperatives.
   only a ground swell of antiwar activism, and i mean actual bodies, lots of them, protesting in the streets and civil disobedience… and american society becoming unmanageable will end this madness. phone calls, faxes and emails to your congressperson ain’t gonna cut the mustard and end this war.

   • 

     on August 31, 2007 at 9:45 pm

     You seem to be new here. Welcome.

     Everything you say is true, and needs to become the conventional wisdom in the blogosphere. Many bloggers cannot get it through their heads that the US is ruled by an elite, that Democratic congressmen belong to it, and that elites never want the same things that the people want. But those three facts explain what’s been happening with the Dems on Iraq and impeachment. If you don’t accept all three, then the Dems’ “cowardice” in the face of a president with Nixonian approval ratings just continues to become more and more baffling.

     It’s pretty clear that the hope is to weaken the insurgency sufficiently so that the military belonging to the Iraqi puppet government can engage it on its own, with the US only providing air support. Then American forces could hunker down in the megabases, and troop levels cut by around half.

     Unfortunately for the neocolonialists, the forces of the puppet government will never be able to deal with the insurgency, for reasons I don’t need to go into because they are well known by now. Thus, I think where pressure to end the occupation will come from is from a progressive breakdown of the army. (Unless a draft is instituted, it’s hard for  me to envision the kind of popular resistance in the US you call for.) The military has said that present troop levels cannot be sustained in Iraq much beyond next spring. When the breakdown of the army becomes sufficiently severe (in the Vietnam war, there were apparently incidents of soldiers killing their officers), our rulers will have to decide whether they are so committed to subjugating the Middle East that they will institute a draft. If that were to happen, of course, the domestic political situation would change drastically, so that the kind of resistance you speak of would emerge.

     But this is the way it is with empires. They never retreat voluntarily. They desperately try to hang on to their conquests. The only reason the Brits dismantled their empire is that the US forced it to. (India was an exception.)

3. 

   idredit on August 31, 2007 at 8:47 pm

   Bush to Brown:

   All countries must stay course in Iraq

   Published: 01 September 2007 – The Independent, UK

   “The first signs of real divisions between George Bush and Gordon Brown over Iraq emerged as the President urged Britain to stay the course in the country.

   The American President said: “We need all our coalition partners. I understand that everybody’s got their own internal politics. My only point is that whether it be Afghanistan or Iraq, we’ve got more work to do.”

   In a Sky News interview, he made clear his irritation with Mr Brown’s approach on Iraq. He said Western troops should only think of pulling out once they had completed the “hard work” of defeating al-Qa’ida and Iranian-backed insurgents.

   Although Mr Brown has rejected demands to set an exit timetable for the 5,000 British troops in southern Iraq, ministers have said that the decision on their future will be taken independently of Washington. They insist a pull-out of British forces would depend on local conditions in Basra – whatever the plight of US troops in Baghdad.[.]

   • 

     dada on August 31, 2007 at 9:09 pm

     the Guardian UK has a little different take on the situation:

     Bush defends UK Basra pullout

     President George Bush yesterday sought to end criticism from the Pentagon and the state department of the British decision to pull troops out of Basra.

     Mr Bush, who had been informed by the British government about its alarm over the criticism in recent weeks, said he was “fine” about the handover to Iraqi forces in Basra. His comments came as the defence secretary, Des Browne, and the foreign secretary, David Miliband, took the rare step of publishing a joint article in the Washington Post to rebut the criticism.

     […]

     The handover of the British headquarters in Basra, in Saddam Hussein’s former palace, to the Iraqi forces and the consolidation of British troops at the international airport 10 miles away are expected in the next few days.

     Senior figures in the Pentagon and, to a lesser extent, the state department have been stinging in private about how effective the British have been in southern Iraq, expressing concern about the pervasive influence of the Shia militias, particularly Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi army.

     […]

     In an interview with Sky, Mr Bush said he accepted the British argument that the handover would be dictated by events on the ground, not to suit the British domestic political agenda. He added: “When you say withdraw, it makes it sound like all their troops are coming home, but that’s not what’s going to happen … they will have a presence there to help this Iraqi government succeed.“

     Ewen MacAskill in Washington
     Saturday September 1, 2007
     The Guardian

     also, Iraq’s radical Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr has announced that his Mehdi Army will be suspended for six months, but it is still too early to know the full significance of his statement.…via BBC.

     interesting. it would seem to indicate, to me at least, an excellent opportunity to negotiate a cease fire, and begin to withdraw all american and coalition forces. Sadr’s a major player, whether BushCo™ likes it or not.

     never happen though…too fucking obvious, and still no Oil Law.

     lTMF’sA

     

     • 

       idredit on September 1, 2007 at 9:22 am

       Imho, The Guardian-Observer, UK has taken to drinking Bush brand kool-aid. There’s been a fair amount of tension.

       From The London Times, UK – ” in the new relationship, here’s the root of the strain.”

       British Forces in Basra might think they had enough enemies shooting at them. But in the latest verbal attack on British policy in southern Iraq, The New York Times yesterday accused Britain of taking the “wrong way out of Iraq”.

       In an editorial the newspaper said that Britain was following “a tempting formula, reaping domestic political credit for withdrawal without acknowledging that the mission has failed”. That follows accusations by unnamed US officials in The Washington Post last week that Britain had baldly failed in its mission in Basra.

       The sniping is not surprising given the strain on US-British relations over Iraq. The perceived antiAmericanism of members of Gordon Brown’s new team, based on a handful of remarks, has had enormous coverage in the US. Bush officials, in mourning for the loss of Tony Blair’s overarticulate endorsements of their policies, are wary of Brown, although they take care to assert the opposite.

       But the root of the strain is that Britain is incrementally taking its forces out of Iraq while the US is stuck.

       Whatever. In the end, US efforts in Iraq will all crumble including this.

       Welcome to the new US embassy
       It’s bigger than Saddam’s palace and, with a cinema, gym and pool, is the safest and smartest place to live in Iraq…

       Baghdad is a city of ruins – of burnt-out homes, of shops wrecked by suicide bombs, of the crumbling shells of Saddam-era palaces and ministries destroyed by smart bombs in the US invasion of 2003.

       There is one notable exception. It is probably the only big new building project in the capital in the past four years. It is the new US Embassy on the west bank of the Tigris which the contractors will transfer to the US Government officially today.